I guess I’m on fire these days. I’m blogging AGAIN, even though I blogged once today.

I have a testimony. I always have a testimony, though. Back at my old church, when the volunteers met in the morning, there were always two people who had testimonies. I was one, and the other was a young guy who sang with the worship team. I guess people got tired of us.

I hate living in Miami. I always have, except for a brief period after law school, when I made a determined effort to fit in. People are incredibly rude here. It’s too hot for a person who likes shooting and working with tools. You can’t grow anything, because the lots are small and the topsoil is six inches deep. The traffic is like something out of a Terry Gilliam movie, if he made movies about traffic. This city is a known hub of homosexual activity. We have nude beaches. We have a yearly celebration where thousands of people go out in the bay and have sex in public. We even have voodoo, including santeria. This is no place for a decent person to live.

My new church opened a place in Winter Haven, and I went up there with a team of people who were helping the place get off the ground. I loved it. My blood pressure plummeted. I felt relaxed. The people were nice. There was lots of open country. There was no traffic. There were Romney signs everywhere. It was like heaven. I started Googling real estate in that area.

Since then, I’ve gotten interested in Ocala. You can get a nice five-acre property near Winter Haven for a very low price, but in the Ocala area, you can get ten acres, and the selection is better. The people are just as nice. There are lots of good churches. The soil is fantastic. The climate is even better than it is in Winter Haven.

My buddy Mike used to live up there. His dad had a thoroughbred farm, and Mike ended up buying in the area. I’ve been picking his brains. He says it’s paradise. Anything you throw in the dirt grows. You can shoot guns in your backyard.

Here’s the problem. My dad is 80, and he’s at the stage where he shouldn’t be alone in Miami. My sister lives here, but she’s in far worse shape than he is. He likes the idea of leaving Miami, but he prefers the Cocoa area. He has a huge boat, and he wants to live on the water. If he sold his Miami house, he could have a palace in Brevard County, with no mortgage.

I don’t want to live in Brevard County. I don’t feel God pulling me that way. Aside from that, the lots are smaller, the soil isn’t as good, and I think it’s gradually becoming polluted with the worldly crowd that has infected Orlando. They say Orlando is not much better than Miami now.

I’ve been praying about this a lot. When a potential disciple told Jesus he wanted to wait until his father was dead, Jesus told him to let the dead bury the dead. Often, you have to move forward alone, as Lot and Noah learned. But you shouldn’t give up too early.

I refuse to have a mortgage. I can do all right with my own resources, but if my father goes with me, we can have a place that would be out of this world. There are lots of properties near Ocala that have more than one house, or what are known as mother-in-law apartments. Many of them have detached workshops. Talk about bliss. I’d be able to look after my dad, I’d be away from Miami’s nasty people, both of us would have privacy, and I’d have a real workshop where I wouldn’t have to trip over things and move things around all the time.

It looked like there was no hope of getting my father to consider moving inland, but I’ve been praying a great deal (mostly in the Spirit), and the other day, he started talking like the Ocala area might be a good choice. Now I’m looking at bigger homes. I won’t even consider less than 20 acres. With the low land prices up there, there is no point in settling for less.

It’s going to happen. I know it. God has set me free from this miserable city. I richly deserved my sentence, but it’s coming to an end.

Prayer in tongues made it happen. I’ve been cranking it up lately. Things are falling into place. In nerdspeak, I feel like I’ve been held captive in a potential well, and now I’m over the hump and being propelled out.

One of the best things about prayer in tongues is that God uses it to order your life. He uses it to plan and build your future. We don’t know which way to turn, because we see so little. God knows everything. He knows exactly what we need and what will make us happy. He fully intends to give us blessed lives. If you pray in tongues enough, you’ll see it start to happen.

I’ve seen some really wild properties. One is a former airport. It’s a long lot; about 20 acres. Most of it is a grass airstrip. It has a house, a caretaker’s cottage, and TWO beautiful hangars. One has a magnificent shop area. The floor is concrete. I salivate when I look at the pictures. Another is some kind of horse-training facility. As it happens, Mike knew the owner. He knows the place. He says it’s gorgeous. It has a bunch of outbuildings and a big detached garage. I have no idea what we’d do with the barns, but that’s not a dealbreaker. And it’s 48 acres. It’s the Sofia Vergara of homes.

If we don’t get one of these places, there are dozens of others. Most of them have horse-related crap on them, but we can deal with that. I can’t imagine what life would be like, living among good Christian people who vote Republican. It would be a foretaste of my home in the hereafter.

5 Responses to “Out of Haran”

Commentaries I’ve read say that the young man was looking for an excuse, that it was a common saying that he must bury his father, even though it might be 20 years. So it was an exaggeration of conformance to the law.
In another verse, Jesus condemns those who neglect their parents contrary to the Law.
I’m glad he’s interested in moving with you. You’ve been doing well by him, especially in the bilge.

Brother Steve…I hate to encourage moving away from the Atlantic coast but I was forced to do the same over five years ago for professional reasons and things continue to improve the further inland we go.

I say you should get the place with the airstrip and hangars.

Why?

Because then some of your other readers and I can try to talk you into buying and restoring an old airplane as a new project and you can get your pilot’s license (or at least solo just for the experience.)

Not sure if you’re aware that this week’s Torah portion is Genesis 12.

KJV doesn’t do justice to the Hebrew or to its relevance to this post.

KJV:
1 Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you.
2 I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

And G-d said to Abram, go to yourself from your land and from your father’s house where you were born, to the land which I will show you.

????-????

means “go to yourself”. The whole personal aspect of G-d’s commanding Abram to take steps (go) toward his personal destiny, himself, is lost in the usual translation. The land, the becoming a nation, the becoming G-d’s conduit for Divine blessing… they are not the goal but the vehicles for humanity’s relationship with G-d.

Abram’s father Terach was an idol manufacturer.

The name given to me at my bris is not Aaron. It’s Abraham. It was during this Torah portion that I departed for Israel in 1983.

Abraham was the embodiment of the Jewish word “chesed”, which is usually translated as “kindness”. It is counted among the 10 tests of Abraham to have him leave his aged father. It was against his nature. Abraham was the kind of man who, on the worst day of pain after his own bris, sought guests to host, offering them bread and water (read the text), yet he prepared a feast fit for a king. From here the Sages derive the principle: “Say a little, but do a lot!”. Abraham argued on behalf of sinning cities to spare them.

Yet he was no lefty anti-capitalist pacifist. He was also a successful general and businessman.

But seriously. I didn’t know about the Torah portion. I did know Abraham’s dad made idols. I recall the story where Abraham shoved them onto their faces and claimed the idols did it, resulting in a confession that idols couldn’t do anything. I don’t know if that part is in the Talmud. I think I saw it in the book of Jasher.

I do recall going to Kibbutz Ein Harod Meuhad and being told I had just missed “Avi.”

I think if someone showed up for dinner on a day like that, I’d pick up the cell phone and tell them to go to Sonic.